Stop complaining about the problems and start exploring the solutions. Over 100 people and various local organizations joined together at the meeting held on March 14th and 15th, which was sponsored by Oyster Bay Main Street Association, Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce and Oyster Bay Civic Association, that was facilitated by Dan Burden of Walkable Communities. Concerns pertaining to the Theodore Roosevelt Museum and Research Center brought people in the door. However, Burden was able to help the community identify deep-rooted problems and gave advice on how to move forward.
After pointing out that, “Unfortunately, there’s a lack of vision in Oyster Bay for its future,” Burden helped the crowd get “to the heart of what the key issues are which is critical to move forward.” He had two primary recommendations. First was to call for a steering committee to advise the Theodore Roosevelt Association’s museum proposal. Second, he suggested recruiting a “highly competent architectural team” to listen and respond to community concerns about the site and other critical issues in the community such as traffic, managing parking and accommodating special events.
Burden may have struck the match but it is up to the community leaders to carry the torch. This is what some of the community leaders had to say.
Matt Meng- President, East Norwich Civic Association
Matt Meng, president of East Norwich Civic Association admitted, “There is good synergy between all of the different organizations. We can use this opportunity to get the town to do the right thing when we are all on the same page. We should be embarrassed and we should be mad if we cannot get all the groups on the same page and go to Town
Hall and give deliver a time line for immediate changes.” Meng realizes that the pressure of some of the community problems should not fall on the shoulders of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA). As he explained, “Parking has been an issue for 25 years. Parking is an issue that needs to be resolved before a shovel is broken into the ground to build a museum. Let's not wait and say the museum will solve the parking problem because that's ass backwards!”
Meng has an idea about setting the one of the issues about the museum being built at Firemen’s Field. He said, “We need a visual to understand what the current proposal of 35,000 square feet footprint looks like. All the stakeholder groups come together and agree to put up a fence that frames in 35,000 square feet within Fireman's Field somewhere. Let’s put up a temporary fence, like any one that you see at the any gas station that is closed up so people can see it for the next 6 months.” Meng believes we would be able to “see how it impacts the baseball games at Roosevelt or anything else. What that does, it gives you a real visual. It is not a picture or a conceptual thing that can be bantered back and forth. Why not get a clear and concise understanding”
As far as Meng is concerned, “We have to move things along. We have to have some real hard things that we can see, touch and feel.”
William Von Novak- President, Oyster Bay Civic Association
Oyster Bay Civic Association President William Von Novak was encouraged by the town
meeting. He expressed, “Burden obtained a thorough view of the issues and concerns of the citizens of Oyster Bay. He expanded on these concerns and offered a focus and a strategy on how they might be addressed including the creation of a steering committee.” In addition, be Burden’s insight Von Novak believed, “the reaction of the people who attended the entire program was positive. The potential of a united community working cooperatively to solve problems is a good thing.”
Nevertheless Von Novak is aware that, “We must be sensitive to the issue of time. The first question should be which issues must be successfully addressed by the time the Theodore Roosevelt Association presents a proposal for a museum?”
To sum it all up he noted, “Dan Burden did a wonderful job for our town, we now have to continue the dialogue.”
Alex Gallego- President, Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce
Alex Gallego, president of Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce shared that he was “grateful to all that attended, I know this effort required considerable time and energy. Our coming together to speak with one another and to develop a common vision will go a long way in shaping our town's future.” It is his hope that, “the idea's we shared will help foster a climate in which retail shops, restaurants, and other businesses can thrive. Let's take on this challenge and continue to build on the positive momentum we created.”
Gallego acknowledged, “All of the issues are important. They are all concerns but we prioritize and look at which are the ones that are most important and achievable. It's ok to have concern about it but if you can't do anything about it then you are spinning your wheels.”
In reference to the meeting and the suggestion of the community forming the steering, Gallego replied, “We all care for one another and we all care about the town what this allowed us to do was have an outside source catalog all the different issues so we can now begin approaching or working to try and solve these things. I think we have a very special opportunity that if we take it and embrace it, we do the right thing it can help or it can be another meeting that goes nowhere.”
Jack Bernstein- Board Member, Oyster Bain Main Street Association
Jack Bernstein, board member of the Oyster Bay Main Street Association, stated, “I don’t think there is any real question as to whether the community wants a Theodore Roosevelt museum. He even believes that “In the hamlet, most people want it Fireman’s field or at least they want something done with Fireman’s field rather than keeping it in its current state. Firemen’s field has to be fixed up one way or another.”
Bernstein noted, that the information from the meeting “gives the TRA something to work with. They know what they have to do, the things they have to satisfy. I think they already knew it but now it is in writing.”
He also pointed out, “Some things that they talked about at the meeting, like fixing up 106, should not be something that makes or breaks a TR Museum. I think 106 is a mess, but that is something the town or state has to do something about.” He also believes “that the periods of peak usage for the museum and for the road are totally different things. However, I think that the museum can open up the traffic and the parking issue and solve many of those things. It will also open up access to the waterfront.”
John Specce- President, Oyster Bay Railroad Museum
President of the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum John Specce thought that the meeting was a great steppingstone. He said, “I think anyone who took the time to come to that meeting obviously has an expressed interest in it. Dan Burden brought people together in a way that they have not been brought together before. As a facilitator, he did his job very well. There is always a benefit to having an outsider looking in acting as a middleman.
Specce put the pressure on the steering committee. “Now it is up to the folks who are going to be on the steering committee to try and come up with some resolution to the issue of the museum at Firemen’s field. I just hope something comes out of it through the steering committee. Hopefully it will be a diverse group that represents various viewpoints and they will be able to come to some sort of consensus as to what the residents of Oyster Bay want at Firemen’s field,” he stated.
Knowing that it will take more effort than just the actions of the meeting, Specce said, “Unless the steering committee can come together and work together as a team nothing will happen.”
Caroline DuBois- Spokesperson, Save Firemen’s Field
Contrary to the popular opinion Caroline DuBois, spokesperson for the organization Save Firemen’s Field was not satisfied with the meeting. She contests that “they did not address some of the most important questions.” DuBois is concerned about “the actual traffic that will come into Oyster Bay during the peak visitation months, which will be summer weekends” as well as “the impact congestion pricing in NYC will have on local train stations.”
DuBois went on to describe the whole process of choosing a committee “bogus.” She explained, “People such as me who have strongly expressed opinions, that are negative about using Firemen’s Field or building the museum are being excluded from the advisory committee. At the same time, people who expressed themselves in favor of the museum being placed at Firemen’s Field are being invited onto the advisory committee. If you are going to have strong opinions on one side, you have to have the strong opinions from the other side. Either that or put the oatmeal mush people who do not know what their opinions are.
Jim Bruns- President, Theodore Roosevelt Association
TRA President Jim Bruns was satisfied with the meeting’s outcome. “I thought it was extremely positive, “ he said. In addition to having a better grasp as to what the community concerns are he believes, “the community has a clearer understanding that we are not trying to cram this down their throats. We are trying to listen to the community, get the community's input and be responsive.”
While members of the community will be participating in the steering committee, according to Bruns, the next step for the TRA is “to continue to move forward on the studies and to begin to look at architectural models.”
-Faith Rackoff reprinted from the Oyster Bay Guardian from 4/11/08
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